I often feel small pangs of guilt when having to write the odd bad thing about a beer; I mean at the end of the day it’s just my opinion right? There is however, a moment every so often, when you come across a beer which is crying out to be slam-dunked in the public forum. I have therefore absolutely no compunction whatsoever in advising every discerning and non-discerning beer drinker to steer well clear of the Mystic Limoen.

Any self-respecting beer aficionado of course wouldn’t need me to tell them this but there is clearly a market for the Mystic beers otherwise the brewers Haacht, and the number of other similar purveyors of these alcopops wouldn’t pollute the market with them. I would though like to bring to the attention of those who might fancy a brief dalliance with these beers, exactly what goes into them, because it certainly aint just barley, water, hops and yeast. According to the official ingredients you will also find the sinister sounding Acesulfame K among other dubiously unnatural additives.

I remember having a long conversation once with a homeopath about diet drinks and artificial sweeteners. The general view was that chemical additives such as aspartame end up pickling your internal organs if drunk in excess, and I’ve been cautious ever since. I decided therefore to have a quick look at Ace-K, or Acesulfame Potassium, or Sunett or Sweet-One as it is also more familiarly marketed as in the US. It has been an officially approved sweetener since 1988; approved that is by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA. Remarkably Ace-K is two hundred times sweeter than table sugar and therefore has been widely used in carbonated drinks alongside other high street sweeteners, whereby a combination of both can often reduce the natural bitterness. That is about all the good news.

The bad news is that this is an additive which has barely been properly tested. Although the FDA in the USA and similar bodies in Europe will deny any concerns, Ace-K contains methylene chloride which is generally held to have carcinogenic properties. Aside from cancer, long term exposure to this compound can cause headaches, depression, nausea, mental confusion, liver and kidney dysfunction, and visual disturbances. Tests conducted on rats over three months showed that an administration of acetoacetamide (a breakdown product) caused benign tumours. The FDA argue that further tests have proved inconclusive, in particular a study by the National Toxicology Program where 60 rats were exposed to massively high does of Ace-K and did not contract tumours. Either way, there is clearly some concern over these additives, and it is generally accepted that Ace-K is one of the most under-tested and potentially most dangerous of the artifical sweetener family.

I’m not stating a case either way but one thing is for sure; that sweeteners such as Ace-K have no place in the world of beer, or certainly not the beer world which I want to live in. The Mystic Limoen was a dreadful experience in its own right, but when you consider the potential implications on your health of drinking beverages like this it just further adds to your woe. The irony of potentially poisoning the very punters that keep them in business at least raised something of a smirk; which is at least more than the beer or this story did.

One response to “#246 – Mystic Limoen”

Yep, I steer well clear of 621 and all its buddies. Actually I have a list with all the nasty ones on it so I don’t get fooled. Thanks for slamming the beer. I have never had it and now I know I don’t need to for my collection!